A weblog by Greg Williams, K4HSM discussing mostly amateur radio and FCC issues.

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Sunday, July 27, 2008

San Diego bust and Houston, we have a problem...

I returned home from San Diego last night. It was definitely a trip I won't forget anytime soon, especially since it looks like I'll be making another trip out here about a week from now.

I tried in vain to chat on any of the San Diego repeaters I could hear. I listened to the nightly net and participated in spite of my lack of warm reception. I didn't bother emailing the answers in, as I was not in the mood to be snubbed.

I plan to go a little more prepared next time. I'll try to research the area's repeaters a bit before I head out. I also plan to keep my repeater directory in my carry-on bags. While returning home from San Diego, we had a 2-hour layover in Houston which turned into almost 5 hours because of mechanical issues disguised as "fallout from Hurricane Dolly" when I asked the counter agents. While in Houston, I passed the time with my FT-530 and tried to bring up something...ANYTHING in Houston, and could not key up a single repeater on 2m or 440. I didn't know if there was a tone on any repeaters, so I tried a few. I scanned around with my Radio Shack scanner and got nothing on 6m, 2m, 220, and 440. It was DEAD for a Friday night...in Houston??? I ended up passing the time scanning the Bush Intercontinental Airport frequencies and listening to air traffic.

A trip to San Diego might be a dream for some, and I did have a good time while out there. But it's definitely not something I look forward to returning to in a week's time. Mainly it's the job I'm doing, but also the fact that I'm gone for two weeks straight. It stretches my wits to no end to be out for so long. Not to mention the fact that school is starting up in about two weeks for my girls, and I look to be missing that while I'm away.

This is an opportunity for me to improve myself where I work, so I have to go. I just hope I can keep from snapping and ending up live on San Diego TV in a high-speed chase that ends up on TruTV sometime in the near future...

Hopefully my repeater hunt will be better next time. I'll be a little further north in a place called Del Mar, and I'll have some co-workers with me as well. I hope I can complete at least one while I'm on the road.

Dale, our trusty TWIAR file uploader and audio guru and bandwidth hog, is out of town this weekend and unable to upload, so I'm doing that right now as I type this. I don't have the pipelines like what he has out there, so it takes more time to upload. They should be good to go com Sunday morning.